Tahiti

Just for fun – we’ve all noticed the many mentions of just going or returning from exotic destinations – when you notice an email discussing a trip to Tahiti or Hawaii or Nice etc, please jot down the email #, date, destination and traveller.

190 Comments

Phil Jones->Caspar Ammann
“Enjoy Beijing! If it rains you might see something, otherwise from
my experience in mid July, it will just be about 200-300m then haze.”

Caspar Ammann->Phil Jones
“we are currently lucky, they just took half of the cars off the streets to test if they can reduce the air pollution in Beijing. ONly cars with either even or odd car plates are allowed. Not too many traffic jams this way either. Still, not your typical Boulder mountain air quality here…”

#0293
Hi IPCC authors…
would any of you be interested in a trip to Prague in late September to make a keynote on:
“How can we make sure that the public understands basic facts the physical science of
climate change?”

I’m not happy with this post. As someone born and bred in Durban, I am insulted that you wouldn’t include my home city in your headline list of “Tahiti or Hawaii or Nice.” Durban is at least as exotic as those locations, has great year-round beaches, excellent hotels and an active nightlife. It is the #1 South African tourist destination for locals. Interestingly, early December is generally regarded as the ideal time to visit Durban, which I am sure is just a coincidence…

Durban, not Dublin. The location of the COP17/CMP7 climate conference starting soon. My point is that when it comes to locations for boondoggles, Durban takes a back seat to no place! I’m just disappointed Steve didn’t recognize this 🙂

And yes, the beaches are usable year-round, though December is particularly pleasant. Even in winter, the temperature rarely drops below 60F.

3677.txt Peter Stott->Tom Knutson “Any dates for the meeting are fine with me –
by that stage IPCC SYR will have finished – wey hey. Can we go skiing ?”

2903.txt Jones->David Parker “The Swiss extremes workshop has afternoons off for skiing.
As I don’t, I’ve been on 60 or 90 mins walks along snow covered rails. Snow is 1m deep
off the trails.”

1092.txt Julie Cole->Ray Bradley “Greetings from the Indian Ocean! I’m emailing you from
a small dive boat off the island of Pemba – offshore Tanzania, where even electricilty
and local phone are a daily challenge.”

1092.txt Ray-Bradley->Keith Briffa “…MUST GET THE
LATEST DRAFT FROM YOU. I’M NOW BACK FROM THE ARCTIC AND CAN WORK ON THIS…”

Dear Dr Jukes,
I have been on travel and am extremely busy at the moment. I hope to be able to get back to you on the question of stripbark in the next week or so once I have had a chance to read your paper carefully. One thing I did see in your Table 1 caused me great concern – if you are using a model that assumes each record you use reflects local temperature (which is absolutely NOT the assumption made in MBH98 and 99)

5017.txt May 29, 2008 Ed Cook->David Frank
“Thanks for the paper as well. I heard about the extremely shocking goof in the instrumental records from Phil Jones in Tahiti. Frankly, I’m amazed that such a shoddy, amateurish mistake could have been made by the British Met Office. The skeptics will have a field day with this paper, honestly, as they should.

0254, Jones to Santer, Nov 1 2004, includes not only a nice bit of travel gossip but also adds further detail on the emergence of the Excel file story:

Scott Rutherford who works with Mike has made some mistakes – doesn’t seem to have the feel for data I keep talking about ! He did put all the data into a file for Mc/Mc about 3 years ago. They said they couldn’t deal with it as it was ascii and they asked Scott to put it into Excel – yes they do things in this format ! Scott didn’t have much experience with Excel and made a few mistakes – data repeating or whatever. Instead of comparing with the Ascii files, they said in that great paleo journal E&E that MBH had made mistakes.
Florence was good – only rained 2 days and we had a great time. Hope you can make it in April.
Cheers
Phil

They said they couldn’t deal with it as it was ascii and they asked Scott to put it into Excel
——————————————————————-
The mind boggles if that’s true. Mc/Mc are incapable of converting themselves an ASCII file to Excel?

Steve: Mann’s statement is a complete fabrication. I asked for an FTP location. As CA readers know, I use R and have a huge number of scripts handling a variety of inputs. Mann invented this story to explain away their own contaminated file. Even CRU knew that this was a fabrication but wouldnt speak out to defend us. Mann recently repeated his fabricated story to the Penn State Investigation who uncritically accepted it at face value.

Mann to Jones – 16 May 2009 (0250.txt)
“Perhaps can convince you to make it to EGU next year? Looks like it will be in Vienna again. I rather enjoyed this one, and I think I may go back next year […] looking forward to catching up w/ you sometime soon, probably at some exotic location of Henry’s choosing ;)”
mike

Um. Looking at this from a position of neutrality, this is all a bit silly isn’t it?
I mean, what on earth does this have to do with anything?
A relative of mine was /at/ that 1997 meeting in Iceland (a meeting that one of your readers evidently considers symptomatic of some kind of gross turpitude or hypocrisy — why exactly beats me, because it mostly consisted of people interested in the environmental history of the North Atlantic, who wanted to see actual places, and ongoing fieldwork, and not just look at computer screens all day long).
This relative was a scholar whose work has often been used as a reference point by sceptics — both of the well-informed and indeed the crackpot variety, since it was based on carefully collected and referenced historical data of various different sorts. She was treated very well indeed by some of that rather mixed group of people whom you insist on referring to as ‘the Team’. She was made welcome by a scholars from archaeologists to physicists whom she found to be friendly, intellectually and politically diverse, extremely intelligent, and above all serious in their commitment to what they do. They were not a cabal of identical monomaniacal loons plotting world take-over and counting their doubloons. These people were not by any means living a life of luxury. (Any idea that most academics profit materially from the work they do is laughable as anybody who has /any/ connection with academia should be able to recognise.) There was no evidence at all of the kind of tribalistic monoculture that you now automatically identify.
To an outsider, who claims no knowledge, but would like clarity, what you’re doing here looks absurd. It’s also unhappily representative of the level of informal debate that has become the norm: in which most of the participants (on both sides) have almost nothing to bring to the table except prejudice. In this strand, you are actively building myths that have no grounding in fact, and slighting people by association for even sharing the same space as your principal targets.
How on earth does this kind of childish inquiry actually help anybody at all see anything more clearly? Don’t you have some sense of responsibility? The cultural divisions that many websites like this (on both sides of the divide) have ended up fostering are not helpful. Whatever serious work you do is getting drowned out by a discourse that serves nobody except a group that, dare I say it, increasingly has the characteristics of a team. Whatever the intellectual rationale behind your approach it’s undermined by the quasi-intellectual posturing that accompanies it, which is so plainly exemplified in this strand.
If you have serious points to make, address them.

That’s a very long way of saying “why do you care where they go?”. The simple answer is that these are a group of people who have worked very hard, as the emails show, to control the message delivered to governments by the IPCC and ensure that it encourages the most stringent action on carbon emissions, yet are happy to jet around the world,as the emails also show, mainly at public expense, generating huge carbon footprints. Whether people here are as anxious about carbon emissions as the Team purport to be is neither here nor there; it is the hypocrisy that Steve is doing a public duty by exposing. If their message is “do as I say, not do as I do” then we all need to know that and take it into account when considering their views.

Yes but you /don’t/ care: otherwise you’d know that your lumping together phenomena that are not necessarily the same, and seeing patterns based on almost no information. It’s /almost/ as if you’re practising the habits you find so horrendous in others. This is a kind of voyeurism in which you don’t care about anything except knee-jerk responses that confirm your position and make you all laugh at the same time. Sorry to be prolix, but I get excitable when I know for a fact that people are deliberately and stupidly misrepresenting actual events at which I was a bystander. Nothing is being exposed here except your own desire to work evidence as you see fit.

Lighten up Jonathan, the first three words of the post were, “just for fun”. Those of us that don’t have the good fortune of taxpayer-funded vacations in the Swiss Alps (and collecting a paycheck while doing so) are blowing off a little steam.

David,
The Swiss extremes workshop has afternoons off for skiing. As I don’t, I’ve been on 60 or 90 mins walks along snow covered trails. Snow is 1m deep off the trails. Anyway back now. So looking at emails. As the sun drops,the temperature plummets. I’m at the GCOS Imp Plan meeting next week in Geneva. Back in CRU on Feb 6.

Considering the Vitriol against SMc in the emails he could justifiably react much more forcibly then he has. That his sole reaction is to have a little poke at the travel arrangements of The Team just once again shows his professionalism plus his calm and measured approach.

First, Steve said “for fun”, and you are taking it seriously. But then others are too, and the whole question does raise serious issues.

The issue is about abuse of public funds. But climate scientists aren’t going to be the first academics or goverment scientists to take advantage of travel to exotic locations. Management of finances is clearly lax – in a cash-strapped world, conferences should be held at the most cost-effective location, and it probably isn’t Tahiti – Norwich the home of the UEA would appear to be better value for money.

To me, the absurdity is coming from the scientists. They’re preaching to us about climate change, how we MUST reduce CO2 emissions for the good of humanity, yet they’re happily constantly jetting around the world for meetings which could just as easily be done via videoconferencing for the last 20 years. And then, refusing to conduct open science so their work can be checked by interested parties.

1. You have people who are deadly serious about C02 spewing C02
2. You have an argument where some scientists have claimed to work for next to nothing. If they argue they are not in it for the gold..then that bears investigation.

So, detailing the perks, especially those that emit C02 is interesting

Why shouldn’t scholars be able to look at field work? You have no idea what any of the meetings were about. Why not quit the false moral superiority and deal in actual facts. Now I’m no statistician, Mr Gray, but I suspect you’ll find that the behaviour of climate scientists in, say, 1997, can fairly be compared with meetings organised by an internet-based group of some sort circa, um, now. By the way were all the people at these meetings climate scientists (whatever they are)?Were the meetings all focussed on climate history? Is Italy an exotic location if you’re, say, Italian? I know that few people anywhere would consider Minneapolis exotic, so you kind of trump everyone there, but nobody in western Europe thinks that an academic meeting room in Switzerland is necessarily all that exotic. And you know what? They do actual work there. My experience is that people who want to know more about the world are generally better at it when they engage with it.

Well thanks Mr Drake. Why bother with thought when you can do the opposite? I’d better back off before the locals in this exotic location turn nasty at the arrival of an outsider. But for the record, I was trying to be serious. How about you?

Saving the Earth is serious business, but the utter lack of introspection is why these people are in this pickle in the first place. In the mean time, those of us footing the bills are having some cheap yucks.

My business travel always ends up in places like Dallas, Sacramento, and Lowell, Mass. We’ve yet to need an urgent working meeting in Vail or Oahu. That’s the private sector for you.

Mr Grove…and can you point to any examples of extremely vital field work carried out on these highly important visits to Tahiti, Switzerland, Florence, Thailand? Or does what you did there, stay there?

‘You’? I’m not what you’d call a Climate Scientist. So don’t burn me at the stake yet. I’m only opening my mouth because now at last I can speak from a position of some authority on something.
My accidental experience of /one/ of these meetings, as a non-expert, may be a single data point, but it illuminates the radical difference between reality and your framing of it.
I doubt all readers have much basis for objectively evaluating the data and methodologies presented here. I can’t pretend I do (despite having absurd numbers of degrees). Like most people, all I can do is weigh competing claims, and try and muddle my way through as best as I can.
Steve McIntyre can work all day long on the statistics, but the fact is most journalists and most everyday folk only engage when someone’s done something comprehensible: like adding up the numbers of air-miles run up by your ‘Team’, who can then be accused of hypocrisy — an area on which most people can speak with great authority. So fun games like this become powerful tools, the sort which we all know serve /instead/ of reason in the media. Ready to use stories like this win arguments were years of work fail: by making us see we’ve been cheated when at first we couldn’t be entirely sure that we had been. We swing voters actually don’t get the science, or the statistics: but we like a story about corruption and moral failure.
But you’re doing something mendacious in a public arena, that is evidently not ‘just in fun’ (why collect the specific citations exactly?). You don’t know the circumstances of the events to which you’re referring, and you don’t care. You don’t know the range of scholarship that was stimulated by these meetings in disciplines in fields that are nothing to do with the science you hate, the number of really good students who were stimulated by really good work and presentations, and informal conversations. At you really saying every group is poisoned by the simple presence of one of the guys on your hit list? At the meeting I crept into, speakers in an /extraordinary/ range of fields — including some non-climatic ones that I DO know a lot about — presented work in a friendly inclusive atmosphere in which experts with radically contrasting views listened to one another with enormous respect. I’ve literally /never/ seen such intellectual openness and honesty encouraged here (and I’ve been looking at this site for years). I’ve literally /never/ seen any indication that regular readers of this site would /accept/ that such a meeting, attended by ‘Climate Scientists’, would even be /possible/. It was a really good, interesting academic meeting: it showed me why conferences are good, and better than staying at home.
As for the hypocrisy of academics travelling, you’ve got a pretty strange view of how they ought to behave if you think that talking to one another and actually /seeing/ how data is derived in the field is a bad idea. If you think /all/ fieldwork on the physical environment is by definition corrupt, you should take the time to look again. Never make the mistake of assuming that your enemy is as stupid or simple as you’d like to think.

I think academics should be allowed to fly wherever they please, it’s vital for new knowledge to be shared and passed on.

However, the message from governments and the environmental NGOs is clear, flying is very, very wrong, it’s “unsustainable” as they put it. If we continue to omit CO2 the way we’re doing, the planet will get too hot and millions will die, so they say. The people that should know this the most, are those that provide the certainties on which the policies are based.

“speakers in an /extraordinary/ range of fields — including some non-climatic ones that I DO know a lot about — presented work in a friendly inclusive atmosphere in which experts with radically contrasting views listened to one another with enormous respect. I’ve literally /never/ seen such intellectual openness and honesty encouraged here (and I’ve been looking at this site for years).”

—

Oh please dude…are you lying, or do you actually believe this stuff you’re saying? People like you are nothing new on this blog. Just like many others before you, you show up here with an agenda, and promptly start trying to transfer your own biases to SM and the commenters here. Yeah, you may have been “looking” at the site for years, but that obviously hasn’t been good enough – because you are definitely misrepresenting the site.

Steve has a open-door policy for everyone, and everyone here is not in lockstep.

For just one example, Mosher isn’t even a skeptic at all, and he’s highly respected. Any climate scientist is welcome to post here, and to disagree with anything that is said. Gavin and many others have taken advantage of this policy.

Jonathan, you put out a lot of words but they contain no reflection and no study – all they reveal is that you are driven solely by your agenda

The idea of the media latching on to this thread and using it to undo the ‘consensus’ is to say the least a stretch. When I read (in his emails) the punk like tactics Mike Mann engages in a) orchestrating a campaign to shout down Soon and Balarius for the sin of having a contrary opinion to his and publishing the basis for it and b) going after the editor DeFrietas at Climate Research for publishing their work – I think the affable picture you seem to have of these characters who participate and further this non-science based response needs further examination.

Amazing what can be achieved in between working “all day long on the statistics”

@jonathan Grove

Nothing out of order about this thread, for fun or otherwise; nobody’s saying that you can’t get good work done in exotic locales. But you can certainly ask questions about the frequency, distance and VFM.

And the prospect of jetting off to meet with your peers in these locations could prove every much an incentive to want to find a reason to keep doing it as straightforward remuneration or public accolades.

Human beings are motivated by any number of influences, some altruistic, some maybe not so.

Are you wilfully missing the point? It doesn’t matter what the trips were for. These people are telling us that C02 is killing the planet – and they’re jetting around the place. Hypocrisy. It’s as simple as that.

You’re correct that we have no context for these trips. But you’ll notice that Steve requested that people list dates as well as locations. The first step here is to get a list together. Then, if someone were inclined, they could take the dates and the locations and attempt to determine what exactly these meetings/conferences/boondoggles were about.

As is often the case with these Climategate emails, I suspect putting the travel in context will make things appear worse for the scientists rather than better. But if no one looks, we’ll never know.

HAH! I double your “meetings in Minneapolis in March” and give you >>The Canadian Mineral Processors<< Since their inception in the 1960's, meetings in Ottawa Ontario third week of January. Unless someone can quote something in Fairbanks in February, that must take the cake as least "beach worthy" conference.

Just drove back today from Pietermaritzburg near Durban. Last night went to a pub where they had a full log fire, in November, in KwaZulu Natal. This afternoon, driving back, we hit a temperature of 9 degC at 3.00 pm in November, in KwaZulu Natal.

Could there possibly be a climate conference or something around here somewhere?

No. Deliberately mendacious use of poorly analyzed information makes me dull. But I suspect that makes two of us. A balanced position would suggest that there is error and faulty work here too, as everywhere else, that has been perpetuated over years: I’ve read good work on both sides of the argument, certainly enough to know that statements of perfect conviction are not worth the cyberspace they occupy — especially when it’s the sort of conviction that demonstrates a constitutional incapacity to have your mind /changed/. In this context, the locker-room humour on display here looks like a very serious and effective means of cementing group think, like jokes aimed at excluding and falsely representing perceived foes always are. I have no political or ideological commitment to those you deride: but your rhetoric makes me a bit more sympathetic, despite my better judgement.

That’s the only thing? Have you checked with anyone close to you? (I have. She says the whole thing is stupefyingly dull. I try to put a brave face on it and then we laugh. I recommend it, wherever possible.)

It’s not to the point on this thread, because this is about listing the exotic locations mentioned in Climategate 2, not moralising about them in any way. The only mistake here is not to be funny. Once the solemnity starts one feels that Team PR has taken over. To be ridiculous is their greatest fear.

But what you’re trying to do here is laugh at what you identify as hypocrisy: so this /whole/ thread depends on acceptance of a /moral/ stance, and the confirmation of /moral/ superiority. I’m trying to say that this reveals /intellectual/ tendencies that undermine your position from the perspective of an interested reader who represents the great majority of people who don’t have party membership.

I don’t see why it’s not enough for you to try to show that some scientists from various different fields might be wrong — unless it’s because the battles need to be fought and won by both sides are those fought and won /outside/ the informed discussion of science, in venues like this, using terms that everyone understands.

If you’re not trying to demonstrate moral failure, what’s the point of this thread? If it’s in fun, why the instruction to provide full references? /Why/ encourage people to produce a data set like this?

The public debate needs clarity not circularity. Circular thinking and false characterisation of the evidence in order to demonstrate a moral failing (hypocrisy) — the original identification of which is already present in your starting assumptions — demonstrates nothing but mendacity, and lowers the tone of debate.

I seem to be failing a purity test — not simply because of my poor sense of humour (plenty of others here are getting solemn and moralistic, without being corrected), but because I’m trying to distinguish between intellectual imperfection and moral failure. You seem to WANT people to conflate the two. Why?

what you’re trying to do here is laugh at what you identify as hypocrisy

No. That’s not why I’m here and it’s not declared anywhere in Steve’s intro, it’s something you’ve read into the thread, to your and its detriment.

There are two reasons I’m here. One is to have a laugh. I think that’s true of many, if not most, writing here. The other occured to me overnight, as I meditated both on this very enjoyable thread and the accusation across the internet and the mass media that deniers are taking the 5292 emails of Climategate 2 out of context.

For the lovely thing about listing destinations mentioned in the emails is that there is really no possible way for us to be taking those out of context. I refer you to TerryMN’s wonderful, succinct summary of his findings yesterday:

Now either McNeil was in Thailand or he wasn’t, those beers were downed by Mann and Briffa in Switzerland as a matter of indisputable fact and although ‘Mann and Jones go to Tahiti’ sounds like a cross between a James Bond movie and a Monty Python sketch it again is grounded in the clearest reality. Astrid wanting Briffa in Reykjavik is the wildcard here – for we are left tantalisingly unsure as to whether Keith could resist her advances. But the general point is crystal clear. In this area, if in no other, we cannot possible take the emails out of context.

So this thread is not only for those with a quirky sense of humour but the more risk-averse journalers of Climategate 2. For here we are on safe ground – Tahiti, Thailand or Tanzania, we care not.

Hi Emma:
This is to confirm that the Department of Environment very strongly supports the bid and that the Caymanian counterpart . . . is keen and willing to participate in the project as outlined. In addition, the funding for the counterpart as proposed is suitable.

#3148 (May 2007)
The most exotic location by far is the one Jones & Cook are sending us, the CA bastards!

Jones to Cook:

When it [Cook’s paper] comes out, send it off to Climate Audit. This will
take the pressure of me and Keith. Those people should all be
sent off to Mars, better still Venus !

Cook’s response:

I agree that Venus is better than Mars for those bastards.
It is more hell-like by all accounts. The audit folks might want to debate the existence of greenhouse warming there as well. Not even Bush would recommend sending astronauts to Venus. Mars after being bathed in cosmic rays for months to get there is okay by his logic.

Dear Steve
I have tried twice to post a comment in Reviews and have failed?
The front end is the team discussing Yama and requesting data is not passed on. Also ‘you didn’t receive it from me stuff’ thisay already have been covered by you?
Scrolling down the email you get De Freitas complaint to a journa about his treatment by Hume and complaining about the lack of independence of CRU.

I searched in vain for your name on the previous thread about uncertainty. You clearly decided it wasn’t easy to defend people who are skeptics in private and zealots in public so you opted instead for easy snarking kere.

JamesG,
I looked at that thread. There were long lists of quotes from the emails, but no effort was made to ascertain what the scientists had in fact said publicly. That is time consuming, and I could see that would become my job, so I abstained. I did do a little of that legwork here.

I’m really not a troll: I’m a genuinely interested person who wants to understand the issues better — and wants to see whether anyone is capable of being reasonable. I’m genuinely troubled by the tone adopted by people on both sides of this argument who think all thought should be suppressed except that which is proscribed by higher authority and pre-packaged positions based on faith.

What part of what I have said do you think is not true?

Your reasoning on hypocrisy is circular. If the Team think what they’re doing is important and true, then of course that would license them to use all means at their disposal to pursue their work to the best of their ability. This would include talking to one another in exactly the same sorts of ways that businessmen and colleagues in other academic fields expect to. (I just got back from a conference in Copenhagen: I talked it up to my mates, but it was no great life experience. Conferences are what academics call having a life — because most of them don’t). Astronomers and orthopaedic surgeons and cell biologists go to conferences too.

But that’s why it has become so important to critics to show that the Team is in fact only driven by money, that these trips to boring academic lecture theatres with nice views are actually luxury holidays. Only by showing that the Team don’t believe in their own work does the argument of hypocrisy really stick. You only want to show that they are hypocrites if you’ve already decided their work is bogus. It’s an intellectual short cut. But there are plenty of people who will gladly assume the work /must/ be bogus, because nobody likes a hypocrite, and nobody like a smart arse telling them how to live their lives.

Here’s my view. Science is about honesty. Telling people not to travel and then gleefully traveling to exotic locations is not honest. Just as splicing together instrument and proxy temperatures to create a desired graph is not honest. So this thread is a simple, short, fun, audit of the level of dishonesty of a particular type (in exotic travel) exhibited by the team.

It is also worthwhile pointing out that few business people will have any sympathy for the pace of life on display at taxpayer’s expense – business people do not attend conferences that leave the afternoons free for skiing – (excepting, perhaps, Enron – but then again that wasn’t the most honesty driven operation, either).

Here is a little project for you, Jonathan.
Check on the number of limos brought in to Copenhagen a couple of years ago for the “environmentalists” who would not use the public transportation. My recollection is between 500 and 1000, but I would like to know the exact number. How many of them flew in private aircraft instead of scheduled flights?

If you aren’t a troll, have you looked at the breadth and depth of topics and analysis on other threads on this site?

You’ve chosen to comment here, and are acting as if this is the only topic of discussion. On the specific subject of the latest tranche of emails, Steve Mc is also soliciting references *only* to matters only concerning the process by which papers have made it (or not) into publication, and the difference between public expressions of certainty and private and unspoken reservations.

Neither of these two topics is tangential or irrelevant to understanding how the “consensus” has been arrived at and the epistemology of pronouncements that we are going to hell in a handcart unless we commit trillions in non-refundable expenditure.

If this lightweight thread isn’t to your taste, fine, find one that is and seek to understand the scientific and analytic doubts that are being raised and discussed elsewhere on the site.

But seagulling in to one self-confessed semi-pisstake, curling your lip, and flying off again isn’t going to convince anyone that you’re serious about wanting to understand the issues.

Perhaps you can start by letting people know what you consider are the significant issues; they’d be better informed to point you at more substantial fare. And have you read HSI? Delinquent? Crutape?

Put it this way: I was imbibing empirical climate research with my breakfast serial approximately 20 years before Michael Mann started studying for his PhD thesis and well before Steve McKintyre became the saviour of reason, when most people didn’t know climatology was a thing, and those who did saw no connection with ‘environmentalism’. I had involuntarily acquired first-hand knowledge of how serious-minded climatologists were going about their work long before anybody dreamed of the IPCC. That doesn’t make me an expert: but it enables me to see rather plainly that I’ll never be an expert. (I’ve got no weapon that would allow me to cross swords with the handful of you who have any kind of significant knowledge and expertise.) But I do know enough to have a fairly good eye for followers and hangers-on, riding on the coat tails of other people’s abilities — that I know /all/ about. So forgive me for being lightweight. But I had to write something here, because I saw something that was deceitful. You should appreciate that.

Video Conferencing was used often by EU leaders trying to sort out huge economic problem. Still have not found references to it in the emails, nor to conference phone calls. Both being less CO2 intensive than air travel.

The business conferences I have attended were work crammed there was barely time for lunch, let alone long mountain hikes. Especially for the leading lights of the conference.

Perhaps they need “sit downs” in far away places, for topics that cannot be discussed in video conferencing etc.

Video conferencing works just as well, even for big meetings. It might require a bit more (or perhaps just different) planning and organisation, but that should only make everything more efficient for the most part. What video conferencing isn’t good at is the informal, social mingling that can be a nice part of a conference or meeting.

This is my opinion as one who has been working in the video conferencing industry for 12 years (so I might be somewhat biased).

I don’t have a problem with people flying to exotic locations for conferences. I just got back from a four day conference where we stayed at the Wakiloa Hilton on the big Island of Hawaii myself (I paid for my wife’s ticket and meals). For most civil servants or scientists these are some of the few perks that you get in the profession.

What is objectionable is that as a result of the polices recommended by politicians based upon these scientists so called “settled science” will put our planetary civilization on a path toward a thousand years of global poverty. If they are wrong it will be far to late to reverse the ill effects on the people effected. If they truly believe that CO2 has the effect that it has, then even stopping one trip, cutting one plane flight, will make a difference. Many sites have addressed the issue of the huge carbon footprint of these conferences when it is quite evident that an online internet conference could achieve the same results scientifically.

>>>Clare has given me a copy of your email about Harry’s (Ian Harris’) salary, currently being paid from R14433, indicating that there are insufficient funds to pay him for the 18 months that was costed for in the proposal.
>>>
>>>Do you know how this has come about? Is it something I’ve done? There is a full 18-months worth of work to do, yet somehow only money for about 17 months of his salary.

They’re just inundated with funds!
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Then of course there’s this trip to Arkansas suggested: 5102.txt

Dear Keith: This can hardly be. How can you be lacking for employment? There must be something fundamentally screwed up at East Anglia, if not on the entire island, for you to be in need of funding. Would you consider a permanent move to Arkansas if we could talk our Dean and Chancellor into a so-called opportunity hire?
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Saving money on private phone calls!!!

To give a wider example of the philosophy, during the year we have stopped bothering to ask people to check their phone printouts for private calls, because the amounts recovered werent worth the effort that it took up.

The CRU Library is managed by Alan Ovenden, 0.5 days per week. In 2007/08, the Library budget allocated was £2800, but we have had to vire money from other headings due to rising costs, and expenditure has been about £3300. As with computing costs, there is no indication in your email as to whether the CRU Library budget has been maintained. Our library is a major resource for staff and students in CRU and ENV, and attracts many international visitors. Just now, we are beginning to get requests for renewals of some of our journal subscriptions.
=======================

Why do they need to travel when they are surrounded by unadulterated luxury: 2893.txt

0170 I’m sometimes ashamed to bring visitors into the CRU coffee room. It’s comfy for us, but it’s a bit flaky as an image, isn’t it?

=======================

Where are the mentions of luxury cars, new houses?

perhaps they actually spend those hundreds of billions on research, satellites, etc.

That’s great news! I’ve confirmed with DOE that I can use up to $10,000
of my DOE Fellowship to provide financial support for Tom’s Symposium. I
will check with Anjuli Bamzai at DOE to determine whether there are any
strings attached to this money. I’m hopeful that we’ll be able to use
the DOE money for the Symposium dinner, and to defray some of the travel
expenses of international participants who can’t come up with their own
travel money. I’ll try to resolve this question in the next few days.
Ben

Location unclear, but related emails have “> I can agree that June 19th seems like a good bet for our Wigley Symposium. CCSM in Breckenridge will adjourn sometime on Thursday afternoon, 6/18”

EdeF – Yep, I knew that and have lusted for its Luxury, but the email was not clear whether Breckenridge had been finalised and executed.
After 2 days of Climategate Two reading, the message I’m getting is confirmation of the few key people driving both the scientific and the monetary agendas, as in the sense “If you do not make your results more acceptable we will find it hard to pay your way to the the Conference.”
Of equal importance is the same people almost demanding that media like the BBC obey their directions, at the risk of ottencers being fired or moved away, like inconvenient journal editors.
This is not science. This is naked power, grabbing money, research and news.

Yeah, whatever happened to Dorking, it has been grossly neglected. Have you tried Tolpuddle, Piddletrenthide, Crudwell, Wimpstone, Bishop’s Itchington, Offchurch or Moreton-in-Marsh? This could be a long thread.

Combining this legitimate concern with Viv Evans‘s advocacy of the far north in winter, why not situate the conference at Westray and accommodate the delegates at Papa Westray, requiring the world’s shortest scheduled flight to connect them.

Dear Thorsten et al.,
Actually the easiest thing to do is just to have PAGES issue such an e-mail with
address, as PAGES has the bulk of our money right now, including that from EPRI.
Mostly likely the PAGES money will be used ot cover European airfares, such as
Keith’s.
Thorsten, hopefully you can issue such an e-mail to Keith.
Let me know if this will work,
KIM

A few weeks ago, Perth in West Australia hosted GHOGM, Commonwealth Heads of Government meeting. Others have suggested the acronym is for “Chaps Holidaying Overseas on Government Money”.
The field is ripe for inventive acronyms, which can be as much fun as inventive algorithms.
Like UEA = “Under Erroneous Assumptions” and the likes.
Suggestion. For a quick appreciation of the thrust of Climategate Two, search key word “money”.

# 1251384906 To and fro,some extracts follow, some out of order for clarity.
From: ???@uea.ac.uk
To: “Niklaus E. Zimmermann”
Subject: Re: ECOCHANGE budget available to UEA – update
Date: Thu, 27 Aug 2009 10:55:06 +0100 ???(BST)
Cc: “Phil Jones” , “Emmanuel Muhr” , ???@uea.ac.uk
Nick,
Apologies if I’ve asked you this before, but I’m being asked about
the ECOCHANGE budget that appears to be available to UEA.
With the UEA budget there is money in categories that UEA has not
had money in before (in other EU projects). Do you know what this money is supposed to be for? We understand the budget for personnel and also travel, but it is the other categories – which seem to relate to more travel and costs for capital equipment. Phil
………………………
– In general, you decide how much you spend where as long
as you have open tasks you are expected to contribute
(which is the case for UEA, you are still involved in A5).
– This means that you spend the money by declaration on
the project netboard, and not by the original budget.
– You cannot spend more salary, should there be no open
task left for you.
– You can spend more salary months than expected from the
budget for a specific position, but you cannot spend
more total money than the budget is. Nick.
………………………….
Finally in travel there was £22923 of which we’ve spent (for meetings so far) £3445 so far, leaving £19477.
(With other items) we are talking about 36 thousand pounds! We
are almost spent up on salaries. Phil
………………………….

I am in Paris at the IPCC meeting, which will last for rest of the week.

#4519 11.8.1999

Sari (UEA):

I am in Geneva trying to help with climate-related activities – back in London next week.

#5325 14.3.2005

Trenberth:

I am in Guayaquil……..

#0231 30.6.2008

Briffa:

I am in Switzerland next week and will meet with Dominique Raynaud and other organizers to refine details.

#0649 10.5.2004

Trenberth:

I have a lot of other commitments: the CLIVAR conf and SSG mtg 20- 31 June, a GEO mtg 15-18 June, Aspen mtg 11-16 July, Montreal in Sep, and I host a mtg here in Boulder in NOvember, plus several others including CAHMDA mtg at GFDL in October

At this time of year I am inclined to gamble and go for the tree plaza which can be nice. Need to check on backup if weather inclement.

We can request funds from NCAR and UCAR: two classes, one to support breaks and one separate for alcohol. Suggest a draft program and speakers would help make the case. Should go to Bill (CGD), NCAR, and UCAR. Bill does not have much in funds for alcohol, but can and should support breaks. I actually feel strongly about this as it sets a bad precedent for others if no such request is made. Maybe we can argue it should come from “stimulus” package?

(4992.txt – 02 Dec 2008)
Jorge L. Vazquez:
” Dear ETCCDI Members and colleagues, […] the Foreign Commonwealth Office (FCO) of the UK signed a grant for the implementation of the project “Strenghtening Capacities for Climate Change Detection in Mexico” […] Would those of you interested in spending 5 days as an ETCCDI workshop instructor in Mexico, please indicate your availability in the following link?”

Thomas C Peterson:
“This is great news, Jorge. […] I would be very interested in participating in this conference, but, alas, I only speak English and Fortran.”

Phil Jones:
“Tom, Thanks for praising Jorge. I’ll have to go to the meeting as it’s being funded by the British Embassy in Mexico. The total for all the projects funded is £5M.”

Thomas C Peterson:
“Hi, Phil, £5M – that should do quite a bit in Mexico.”

(0515.txt -24 Mar 2009)
Phil Jones to Keith Briffa:
“It is hot here in Puebla. The interactive aspect of the wrokshop is on now. […] I can only help the few who speak English”.

“Any dates for the meeting are fine with me – by that stage IPCC SYR will have finished – wey hey. Can we go skiing ?”

“I will likely be in the US for the AMS annual mtg during 20-24 January in New Orleans. ”

“Also, Doug says that if we would soon decide on our next meeting timing, we may be able to get a particularly attractive location at NCAR (forgot what its called).”

“Myles points out that Brits wanting to bring kids would do well with dates on either side of the weekend 16-17 February for the Southern part, and 9-18 for the northern part (which is when school is out).”

date: Sat, 13 Jul 2002 14:14:55 -0400
Cook to Poor Old Harry
—————————–
Those four files could easily be incorporated into
data statements in the program, but neither Mike nor I have done
that. I must say that Mike’s program is not that easy to figure out
how to use. It does work okay, but the learning curve may be a bit
steep and frustrating.

I am off to China on Monday, July 15 at 9:30am and do not return
until July 31. So, if you have any problems or questions, you must
either contact me before 9:30am (possible due to the time difference)
or wait until after my return.

Cheers,

Ed
—————————-

I’m off to China for over two weeks… but good luck with Mike’s code Harry! Don’t get too frustrated! 🙂

“I incorporated the comments received so far regarding the 1. Circular for the “Past Millennia Variability” workshop and made the final version (attached). Attached is also the finalized participants list. Please have a quick look – thanks! We once also discussed having an Asian participant. Actually, there is nobody from Japan or China on the list…

If you agree, I will send out the information (1. Circular, “Invited Participant list”) this week.

Thanks for your feedback, All the best, Christoph — Christoph Kull”

Response from Briffa:

“Christoph just back from Switzerland – only comment is that I really believe inviting Eduardo Zorita to incorporate a member of the German team would seem justified and necessary.

Obviously, inviting Hans von Storch is not practical,but Eduardo is , I believe, objective and fair and would certainly contribute constructively (and could include relevant work from Gerd Burger from Berlin, who published the recent Tellus paper on the various simulated reconstructions). best wishes all Keith”

Response from Mann:

“Keith’s comment was never sent to me. I only saw Phil’s comment (which apparently had Keith’s comment below. Howver Keith never sent this to me!).

We had specifically discussed this in Bern and decided that Zwiers could more objectively reflect that group than either Zorita for Von Storch who have been involved in ad hominem public attacks against us. Again, we had a specific discussion about this.

I hereby formally withdraw my participation from this event.”

Briffa’s response to Mann (I’ve cleaned up the language in bold):

Mike

I absolutely accept responsibility for this (foul) up – I simply did a multiple reply when I suggested this and did not notice that your email address was wrong.

I thought there might be some sensitivity (hence my remark that it was clearly inappropriate to ask Hans) but my suggestion was just that – a suggestion , which required your acceptance,and motivated only by recent contact with Eduardo where he was clearly not in any way personally critical of you – but honestly seemed motivated by a wish to advance the science.

I too misinterpreted your silence as agreement . We simply will not allow you to withdraw . You know perfectly well that you are too important in all this to take such action. If it requires my talking to Eduardo and getting him to withdraw,then so be it. However, please accept that I (and I believe Eduardo) consider Hans’ attack to have been unacceptable , and consider that as a group we need to move the subject on.

I think we should try to build bridges here.

with genuine apologies for all this sincerely Keith”

Mann’s final word:

“ok Keith–thanks for clarifying. It sounds like it was just an
unfortunate but entirely honest mistake. Clearly too late to uninvite
Eduardo, and I take Keith’s word for it that he will “behave”
appropriately. I would urge the invitation of Eugene Wahl too, if people
don’t object, just to provide a bit more balance in terms of the people
who have actually been testing the multivariate calibration methods, etc…

The group dynamics with regard to positioning, importance and leverage there of on inclusion and exclusion of others within the clique is very interesting. Keith throws Hans under the bus, but saves Eduardo from Mike’s black ball.

John Sweeney of Maynooth wrote a rambling letter to the Irish Times yesterday.
I’ve just left the end bit in.

“..It is regrettable that Ireland will not be able to go to the Durban conference next week as a progressive small country punching above its weight. Rather it will go as one of the highest per capita greenhouse gas polluters in the world, committed to using large amounts of taxpayers’ money to buy emission quotas abroad to meet its international obligations rather than tackle the problem head on at home. – Yours, etc,

Prof JOHN SWEENEY,

Department of Geography,

National University of Ireland,

Maynooth,

Have these people never heard of video conferencing?
Perhaps he believes that the CO2 emitted when attending meetings of crucial importance is less damaging to the environment than that emitted by frivolous people like me on my annual holiday to Lanzarote to catch some rays.

The payment for my Cuba visit has been made successfully to my account, a total of 4287.02 pounds. My travel costs were 1771 pounds, thus leaving 2516.02 pounds as my consulting rate (6 days@$650/day allows for $1.55 to the pound). The contract with you also stated however that a per diem was also to be paid at the standard UNEP rate. I spent three days in the country, but the per diem for thesee 3 days seems not to have been included in the payment.

Can you check this out for me and see whether something has been omitted?

In CRU today – off to Chicago for the VTT CCSP meeting tomorrow. This should be interesting ! Roger Pielke has been stirring things up with a minority report, but Tom Wigley has given me much of the background and some amazingly caustic emails. I’ll need to tread carefully !
I’ll try to arrange a flight to get Beijing on the Sunday as well. Flying from here I’ll get in early that day. I’ll return on May 13. Which hotel will you go for?

Given the poor flight connections to Moldova and my commitments here at UEA on Tuesday 25th Jan., I cannot arrive in Moldova earier than late afternoon on Wed. 26th January. I will leave on either the evening of Friday 28th
Jan. or on the morning of Sat. 29th January, depending on flights back to Norwich.

IDAG is meeting Jan 28-30 in Boulder. You couldn’t make the last one at Duke. Have told Ferris about IDAG, as I thought DAARWG might be meeting in Boulder. Jan 31-Feb1 would be very convenient for me – one transatlantic flight, I would feel good about my carbon bootprint and I would save the planet!
Cheers
Phil

>>>Clare has given me a copy of your email about Harry’s (Ian Harris’) salary, currently being paid from R14433, indicating that there are insufficient funds to pay him for the 18 months that was costed for in the proposal.
>>>
>>>Do you know how this has come about? Is it something I’ve done? There is a full 18-months worth of work to do, yet somehow only money for about 17 months of his salary.

They’re just inundated with funds!
=======================

Then of course there’s this trip to Arkansas suggested: 5102.txt

Dear Keith: This can hardly be. How can you be lacking for employment? There must be something fundamentally screwed up at East Anglia, if not on the entire island, for you to be in need of funding. Would you consider a permanent move to Arkansas if we could talk our Dean and Chancellor into a so-called opportunity hire?
=======================

Saving money on private phone calls!!!

To give a wider example of the philosophy, during the year we have stopped bothering to ask people to check their phone printouts for private calls, because the amounts recovered werent worth the effort that it took up.

The CRU Library is managed by Alan Ovenden, 0.5 days per week. In 2007/08, the Library budget allocated was £2800, but we have had to vire money from other headings due to rising costs, and expenditure has been about £3300. As with computing costs, there is no indication in your email as to whether the CRU Library budget has been maintained. Our library is a major resource for staff and students in CRU and ENV, and attracts many international visitors. Just now, we are beginning to get requests for renewals of some of our journal subscriptions.
=======================

Why do they need to travel when they are surrounded by unadulterated luxury: 2893.txt

0170 I’m sometimes ashamed to bring visitors into the CRU coffee room. It’s comfy for us, but it’s a bit flaky as an image, isn’t it?

=======================

Where are the mentions of luxury cars, new houses?

perhaps they actually spend those hundreds of billions on research, satellites, etc.

And now of course we don’t actually
>have the 750 UK pounds they say NABO owes them in the NABO account. I don’t
>know if I believe CUNY’s accounts or not, but the bottom line is that we
>made every effort to get this bill paid, and there is now nothing left to
>pay with (and I don’t have the money myself either). UEA is going to either
>have to admit they were paid, proceed with their legal threats against me
>personally, or (best option) eat the loss (if they actually have one) as
>operating expenses as part what happens when you host major conferences. I
>am ending the NABO grant with many times this amount lost out of pocket, and
>I am not a major research university.
>

6.- Reduce the emissions means to change our standard of living and economical. Do you
think that people is really aware of it?

No they aren’t. I’m coming to the meeting by Ryanair to Reus. The flight costs £70 return.
This is a few pounds less than the return rail fare between Norwich and London. This is
wrong.
It isn’t just about standard of living, it is getting our priorities right.

And they just waste funds on crank theories: 3165.txt

There were a few good talks on the sun, but many were poor and few of those present seem to take in what I was saying about the observations
and the paleo data, nor what Simon said about models and detection. Many in the solar terrestrial physics community seem totally convinced that
solar output changes can explain most of the observed changes we are seeing. The far-sighted ones are begining to doubt with the rapid rate of recent warming, however.
The press releases relate to pre-publicity by the solar terrestrial community to justify the conference, the SOHO mission (which is only 6 years of data !!!) and to give support to a CERN idea (costing at least
2 million UK pounds) to mimic galactic ray ombardment/cloud increase ideas. This latter idea is attempting to prove Svensmark’s ideas.

Some spoilsport planned a meeting closer to home so the extreme waste of money by continually traveling half-way around the world didn’t happen? 750 UK pounds could easily have been saved by just one of the junkets being closer to home. Don’t you think that their judgment in the use of the financial resources might be a little clouded?

How does your “crank theory” reference fit into this particular discussion? Couldn’t find any further evidence of responsible use of research funds?

You still haven’t explained the reference to ‘crank theories’. I know some people find it fun to mock rival scientific theories – because I’ve read some of the emails. But as it happens 3165.txt ends with Phil Jones saying to ‘Tim and Jeff’:

Can we discuss this for a few minutes in Luneburg.

That’s from 3 Oct 2000. I’ve know of Luneburg Heath as the scene for the unconditional surrender of German forces in 1945 and the final resting place of at least one undesirable from that era. I’ve no idea how exotic the area would seem to Dr Jones fifty five years later.

We have received your request for PAGES reimbursement for your travel to the HIHOL meeting in Avignon. Unfortunately, PAGES has a strict policy of
not refunding business class travel. This policy has been bent for you once, after the fact and with *very much* difficulty, at the CLIVAR meeting in Venice since you stated that you were unable to find economy seat. However, we cannot bend the rule a second time in a row. It will be absolutely impossible to clear this expense with our financial auditors at the
University of Bern and the Swiss National Science Foundation, especially as your travel costs are more than three times the cost of any other European participant at the meeting.

The conference organizer, Keith Briffa, informed us before the conference that your expenses would be 300 GB pounds. Therefore, what I suggest is that we send you that amount, and you seek another source of funding for the additional amount. I am sorry about any inconvenience that this unavoidable decision may cause you.

“I’ve just returned from a very wet and green Sahara, having attended a
meeting on “Rapid and Catastrophic Environmental Changes in the Holocene and
Human Response”, organised by Suzanne Leroy at Brunel and sponsored by the
following bodies:
IGCP 490 (The role of Holocene environmental catastrophes human history
ICSU DARK NATURE – RAPID NATURAL CHANGE AND HUMAN RESPONSES
IUGS – GEOIND Geoindicators Initiative
INQUA (International Union for Quaternary Research)”

As you know, I’d like to use some portion of my DOE OBER Distinguished
>
>> Scientist Fellowship to provide financial support for Tom Wigley’s
>> Symposium. The primary purpose of the financial support would be to
>> cover the cost of food for the Symposium reception and Symposium
>> dinner on June 19th. This estimated cost of the food is less than
> $4,000.
>> Fellowship money would not be used to pay for any alcohol.
>>
>> I’ve also been asked (by Mike MacCracken, Natasha Andronova, and Marty
>> Hoffert) whether I could assist them in covering travel and
>> accommodation costs they incur in attending the Symposium. I’m
>> anticipating that the total travel and accommodation costs for Mike,
>> Natasha, and Marty would be less than $2,500.
>>

Sorry for the lack of response to your emails. Been over the top as usual on things. I go off to Tasmania and New Zealand on Jan 20 and return on Feb 15. Bhutan was a bit strange this time. I was sick most of the time, but we did get some useful stuff done nonetheless.

Ben,
I’m at an extremes meeting in Riederalp – near Brig. I’m too old to go skiing. I’ll go up the cable car to see the Aletsch Glacier at some point – when the weather is good. Visibility is less than 200m at the moment.

It is good news that Rob can come. I’m still working on Keith. It might be worth you sending him another email, telling him what he’ll be missing if he doesn’t go. I think Sarah will come, but I’ve not yet been in CRU when she has.

With free wifi in my room, I’ve just seen that M+M have submitted a paper to IJC on your H2 statistic – using more years, up to 2007. They have also found your PCMDI data – laughing at the directory name – FOIA? Also they make up statements saying you’ve done this following Obama’s statement about openness in government! Anyway you’ll likely get this for review, or poor Francis will. Best if both Francis and Myles did this. If I get an email from Glenn I’ll suggest this.

Also I see Pielke Snr has submitted a comment on Sherwood’s work. He is a prat. He’s just had a response to a comment piece that David Parker, Tom Peterson and I wrote on a paper they had in 2007. Pielke wouldn’t understand independence if it hit him in the face. Both papers in JGR online. Not worth you reading them unless interested.
Cheers
Phil

Yes, Friday-Saturday I noticed that ClimateFraudit had renewed their interest in you. I was thinking about sending an email of sympathy, but I was busy preparing for a quick trip to Hawaii – I left Monday morning and flew out Tuesday evening and am now in the Houston
airport on my way home.
Regards,
Tom

I think the invites have gone out for Venice, and so far the only one from AR4 Chap 6 going is me – or rather, I haven’t heard from anyone else. Eystein isn’t going since Norway has a bunch from the other WGs.

This email is about a UEA staffer who also happens to be a Greenpeace activist aiming to take at least a few coachloads to Genoa – for an anti-globalisation protest.

from: Noam Bergman
subject: [norwichgreenparty] Genoa
to: g , ngp

The next BIG anti-globalisation activity will be in Genoa, protesting
at the G8 conference in Genoa, July 20-22. UK activists are hoping to
get 40,000 people from the UK to Italy for it. Locally, UEA activist are
planning to get a large number of people from Norwich going, hopefully
hiring a few coaches for the trip. Some people may prefer looking for
Easyjet / Go / Ryanair flights to Italy…

>Be careful not to oil yourself too much because the smell of
>grilling fat will annoy the neighbours. Seems like the timing of
>your Italy jaunt does not suit us by the way so I think you are safe
>as regards a visit.
>Best wishes
>Keith

The 2012 UN Climate Change Conference, COP 18/CMP 8 (the 18th Conference of Parties to the UNFCCC, plus the 8th session of the Conference of the Parties serving as the meeting of the Parties to the Kyoto Protocol), will take place in Qatar from 26 November to 7 December 2012.

I have been travelling in a remote area of southern Colorado without internet access from Monday until just now. I’m still several hours from Boulder, and need to get there before evening (it is 13:45 local time).